8 ms·

Modern Nuclear plant designs can throttle and peak. Even older reactors can react pretty well to changes in demand. Solar produces 0% at night and wind can vary

by foxyv 5y ago

Modern Nuclear plant designs can throttle and peak. Even older reactors can react pretty well to changes in demand. Solar produces 0% at night and wind can vary dramatically with calms lasting for days. If wind calms at night then you are on either stored energy, peakers, and/or black-outs. Ideally we would use stored power. But, at the current rate, even accounting for expansion of supply, we can expect that it will not nearly be enough to meet climate targets. https://www.wind-energy-the-facts.org/understanding-variable-output-characteristics-of-wind-power-variability-and-predictability.html https://www.wind-energy-the-facts.org/understanding-variable...

ZeroGravitas 5y ago
That link doesnt seem to support your claims about wind lulls, stating almost the exact opposite but let's stick to nuclear anyway as thats far more interesting. So in this alternative you propose, with the modern peaking nuclear reactors. What kind of capacity factor do the nuclear plants hit overall and what are you using to fill the seasonal peaks? Nukes that run only 1/12th or less of the year? It all sounds very costly if we're building lots of nuclear plants that run below their rated max. That's really going to put the price per kwh up. Maybe we could build HVDC lines to carry the power long distances from the plants. If you had two cities with a plant each but seperated by a few tinezones you could send the power from the one with the night tine lull to the one with the daytime peak. That would bring costs down I suppose. Or use the excess power for making hydrogen. Its not super efficient, but if your only alternatuve is a nuclear plant that could be generating more then it'll probably work out financially. Or use the excess energy to generate carbon free fuels for airplanes. This is starting to sound like an actual plan.

by foxyv 5y ago

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

That link doesnt seem to support your claims about wind lulls, stating almost the exact opposite but let's stick to nuclear anyway as thats far more interesting. So in this alternative you propose, with the modern peaking nuclear reactors. What kind of capacity factor do the nuclear plants hit overall and what are you using to fill the seasonal peaks? Nukes that run only 1/12th or less of the year? It all sounds very costly if we're building lots of nuclear plants that run below their rated max. That's really going to put the price per kwh up. Maybe we could build HVDC lines to carry the power long distances from the plants. If you had two cities with a plant each but seperated by a few tinezones you could send the power from the one with the night tine lull to the one with the daytime peak. That would bring costs down I suppose. Or use the excess power for making hydrogen. Its not super efficient, but if your only alternatuve is a nuclear plant that could be generating more then it'll probably work out financially. Or use the excess energy to generate carbon free fuels for airplanes. This is starting to sound like an actual plan.